Actor Channing Tatum is to assume a new role behind the camera by co-directing and producing a new movie. The Magic Mike star is taking on an adaptation of young-adult novel Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, which tells the story of a student who plots to kill his best friend and then himself.
According to editors at The Hollywood Reporter, Tatum is in talks with movie bosses to play the troubled teenager's teacher who tries to help him, along with directing and producing duties.
The book was written by Matthew Quick, the author of Silver Linings Playbook which was adapted into an Oscar-winning movie in 2012.

Lady Gaga has joined the celebrities taking the Ice Bucket Challenge for Lou Gehrig's Disease research in typical dramatic fashion. The bikini-clad pop star has uploaded a video of herself pouring a silver serving dish full of ice-cold water over her head while seated in a chair online. She says nothing in the footage, but posted the message: "#IceBucketChallenge #ALS #SharePainShowCompassion I nominate Adele, Michael Rapino, Vincent Herbert, and Arthur Fogel #RichPeople."
Stars like Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Jon Bon Jovi, Carrie Underwood, Justin Timberlake, Eddie Vedder and Gwen Stefani also joined the challenge over the weekend (16-17Aug14), posting videos online of their chilly water moments.
Vedder took the task on after Pearl Jam bandmate Mike McCready called on him and the rest of the group to join him in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
The Alive singer nominated pal Bruce Springsteen, One Direction star Niall Horan and actor Tim Robbins to follow his example.
The celebrities are being nominated by famous friends to take on the icy bucket blast or donate to charity. Most stars are doing both.
The campaign has been a big boost to charities connected to Lou Gehrig's Disease, aka ALS - more than $13 million (GBP7.6 million) has been raised since the end of May (14) and there have been over 1.2 million bucket challenge videos posted on Facebook.com.

What better follow-up to ice princesses than superheroes? The first teaser trailer for Big Hero 6, Disney’s first animated feature since Frozen stormed its way into our hearts and ears last year, was released on Thursday, and it seems the studio is aiming to give superheroes an adorable makeover. The film follows robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada and his robot Baymax, who team up with a group of crime fighters and fellow child geniuses to protect their fictional city of San Fransoyko. The Big Hero 6 comics books are one of Marvel's more obscure brands, designed as a mini-series in 1998, and because it's not well-known to people who aren't hardcore comic book readers, Disney Animation has a bit more freedom to play around with the source material in their first animated adaptation of Marvel comic.
And the studio used that freedom to revamp the plot and several characters to tell a different, more Disney-esque story. The original comics centered on a group of heroes who were recruited by the Japanese government to become a state-sanctioned band of heroes. Big Hero 6 was headed up by Silver Samurai, a freelance hero and part-time body guard and Sunfire, the country's most famous superhero and mutant, neither of whom are set to appear in Disney's film. Though many of the storylines and artwork are aimed at teenagers – and the characters themselves are mostly teens – there are plenty of adult-friendly elements to the books, including Honey Lemon's skimpy costume, her relationship with Hiro, and Baymax's "special relationship" with Hiro's mother, which came about as the result of Hiro using his father's brain to help program the robot.
The film, however, appears to be explicitly targeting a younger demographic, from again down the characters to playing up the film's connections to Frozen and Wreck-It Ralph over its Marvel origins. The animators also did away with the anime influences of the comics in favor of art reminiscent of Wreck-It Ralph and Bolt, which allows Disney to further put its stamp on the project. Though many of these changes were likely the result of the studio attempting to establish Big Hero 6 as its own property, they also help market the film towards a younger audience, which is Disney's primary target.
In many ways, the studio is smart to rework the source material for a younger audience. Designing the film to skew towards a younger audience opens up the range of people who will potentially come see a film – after all, age has never prevented people from seeing animated films – which results in bigger potential box office returns for the studio. By aging Big Hero 6 down, Disney is able to take a comic that appealed to a wide range of readers, and turn it into a true "all ages" experience. Besides, targeting children not only brings in bigger tickets sales, thanks to the adults who need to accompany them to the theater, but it also allows them to advertise both Iron Man and Baymax merchandise to the same demographic.
Of course, rebranding a property for a younger audience means that changes need to be made to the original comics in order to make things more family friendly, which means that things are likely to get left out. The Big Hero 6 comics weren't explicitly aimed at an adult audience, and the cast of teenagers makes it easier to revamp for a younger generation. The biggest losses the series will suffer in its move to the big screen are the absence of Silver Samurai and Sunfire, who were the original leaders of the gang. Since they were the most famous characters in the series, it's a big move to drop them completely, but since both left the Big Hero 6 team in the comics, leaving Hiro in charge, the writers have pre-existing stories and relationship to drawn on for the movie without them. As the oldest members of Big Hero 6, they don't necessarily fit in with Disney's concept of a team of children fighting crime, and since Sunfire is also part of the X-Men universe, there may have also been some contractual issues at play.
In the end, though, Big Hero 6 probably won't need its two oldest members in order to be successful. By creating an entirely new narrative inspired by the comics, Disney can find different ways to ensure that the best parts of Big Hero 6 stays intact on screen, while still having the freedom to drop the elements they deem superfluous. It’s hard to tell from just the teaser how those changes will affect the film, although the drastic change in tone and target audience does seem to suggest that not much will be lost when Big Hero 6 hits theaters on November 7.
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Michael Jackson returned from beyond the grave to wow fans at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday (18May14) by performing onstage in hologram form, five years after his death. Producers of the Las Vegas prizegiving used virtual technology to make it appear as if the King of Pop had been brought back to life to sing and dance his way through new track Slave to the Rhythm.
Dressed in a white and gold jacket and red pants, he began the eerie appearance seated in a throne before joining a string of dancers to show off his fancy footwork, including his signature moonwalk, by strutting across the stage at the MGM Grand Garden Arena as he appeared to belt out the tune. The stunt, titled the Michael Jackson Xperience, left the audience in awe and earned a standing ovation from everyone in attendance.
Stars also took to their Twitter.com accounts to share their feelings about the performance, with newlywed Kelly Rowland writing, "We miss you Michael!", while actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler tweeted, "I have chills watching michael Jackson performance. Makes u (sic) realize there will never be a performer like him", and rapper Nicki Minaj commented, "Dat (sic) was mike?"
The virtual performance almost didn't happen after Jackson estate executors and Billboard Music Awards producers were slapped with legal action in an effort to put a stop to the show. Businessman Alki David, who claims to control the rights to the hologram technology, filed suit in Nevada on Thursday (16May14), insisting the Billboard gig would likely violate his patent, but his motion was dismissed on Friday (17May14) due to a lack of evidence, allowing the show to go on.
The Michael Jackson Xperience, organised to celebrate the release of his new posthumous album Xscape, beared similarities to the resurrection of Tupac Shakur at the 2012 Coachella music festival in California, where the dead rapper appeared onstage alongside Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in hologram form. The Thriller hitmaker died in 2009.

Cinedigm via Everett Collection
Looks like Brie Larson is going to break everyone's hearts once more. The Short Term 12 star has landed the lead role in Room, the big screen adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel about a woman and her young son trapped in a single room for years. Room is the fourth high-profile role that Larson has landed recently, after Judd Apatow's Trainwreck, Matthew Quick's Silver Linings Playbook follow-up The Good Luck of Right Now, and Mark Wahlberg's crime drama The Gambler. With such a diverse list of projects on her plate for the near future, it seems as if Larson has a number of possible career trajectories available to her. Will she choose to stick with the quiet indies that have brought her so much acclaim thus far? Will she give up dramas for a while and embrace her comedic side? Is there a major role in a big-budget franchise in her future?
We've taken a look at Larson's upcoming projects and used them to predict where we see her career headed if they become big successes. No matter what happens, you should get to know Larson's work now, so that you can brag that you knew about her first.
Room Although it’s hard to predict what direction Room will take (the novel is told from the perspective of five-year-old son), it’s clear that Larson has a difficult, emotionally intense role in front of her. We could see her career following in the footsteps of Marion Cotillard, whose Hollywood breakthrough was similarly complicated and layered, and who has gone on to play many more dark and complex characters. Since Larson was rumored to be in the running for a role in the upcoming Terminator film, she should have no problem landing a role in a major franchise, like Cotillard, although we see her in one of the more inventive big-budget films. Perhaps something along the lines of Inception? A Cotillard-like career would also allow her to continue to work in smaller indie films, as well as to mix her serious, weighty projects with lighter fare, in much the same way that Cotillard followed La Vie en Rose with Nine and Midnight in Paris with Rust and Bone. And if we don’t see Larson at the Oscars for Room, then it should only be a matter of time before she, like Cotillard, takes home a trophy.
Trainwreck With Judd Apatow at the helm and Amy Shumer writing and starring, Trainwreck is both the only outright comedy and the most mainstream of her upcoming films. Larson’s proven that she can do comedy well, having played supporting roles in 21 Jump Street and United States of Tara, so it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if her breakthrough came about as the result of her showcasing those comedic chops. From there, she could stick to comedies, a la Leslie Mann, whose supporting roles in Apatow’s projects have allowed her to transition into carrying films on her own. But we think it’s more likely that Larson would emulate someone like Sandra Bullock, who has managed to do both comedy and drama. Like Bullock, Larson would probably stick to starring in big-budget comedies for some time (we see her taking on slightly weirder projects like The Heat rather than becoming a rom com darling), before finding the perfect dramatic role to help her transition back into more serious work. Thus far, Larson has managed to balance her roles in a similar fashion to Bullock, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for her to find a way to keep a foot in both worlds. Besides, she's so talented and charming that she could easily become the successor to Bullock’s “America's Sweetheart” title, as well as being a future Best Actress contender.
The Good Luck of Right Now Based on the novel by Matthew Quick, who wrote Silver Linings Playbook, The Good Luck of Right Now is a dramedy about four outsiders who come together to form an unlikely family as they deal with pain, loss and major tragedies. Larson would play a librarian who believes herself to have been abducted by aliens, who falls in love with Bartholomew, a 30-something man who is dealing with the death of his mother by writing letters to Richard Gere. The Good Luck of Right Now is a quirky comedy, with a script by Mike White, and so we could see her following in the footsteps of the queen of independent cinema, Parker Posey. Posey has had a long career that ranges from comedies to dramas and small, independent films to big, studio ventures, and since Larson seems to be interested in working on a wide range of projects, including Dazed and Confused and the comedies of Christopher Guest, it seems likely that she might be headed on a similar career path. Posey is also every popular show's go-to guest star, with a particularly memorable appearance on Louie and Parks and Recreaction. With stints on Community and The Kroll Show under her belt, it seems like Larson might already be following in her footsteps. Plus, Larson's got the "endearingly quirky" thing down, so she should have no trouble becoming Hollywood's new indie darling.
The Gambler In this remake of the 1974 James Caan film, Larson will play the female lead opposite Mark Wahlberg, who will take on the role of a professor whose gambling habits threaten to ruin the lives of him and everyone he care about when he gets in over his head with some loan sharks. It’s a dark, gritty supporting role, and we don't see Larson being brushed off as just another "supportive girlfriend-type." Instead, we predict it could set her on an Amy Adams-type career path, as Adams managed to transform another "girlfriend" role in The Fighter into one of the most compelling characters in the film. Although Adams was a more established actress at the time, there are a lot of similarities between her and Larson, from their breakthrough roles in quiet, realistic indies (Junebug for Adams and Short Term 12 for Larson) to their penchant for goofy, over-the-top comedies (Talladega Nights and The Muppets vs. 21 Jump Street) it seems an apt comparison. Emulating Adams would allow Larson to continue to take darker, serious roles in both big-budget and indie films without having to totally abandon her comedic side, and since critics are already predicting that she will soon be an Oscar fixture, Adams seems like an ideal career role-model for Larson.
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Marvel Studios
Marvel Comics have plenty of potential for sequels thanks to their movies basically printing money whether they're good or not. Their good guys need to go up against bad guys. And there are still some villains who are as bad as they come.
Thanos
You're teasing us, Avengers. Marvel films are known for having a big reveal at the end, usually after the credits. A poorly kept secret was that Thanos, one of the strongest and most feared baddies in the Marvel universe, would make an appearance at the end of The Avengers. Yup, there he was, which led us to believe Thanos would be the antagonist of the sequel. Nope. Ultron will assume that role. We'll have to wait for a third Avengers. Thanos' major powers include superhuman strength, telekenisis, genius intellect and teleportation. He is more than a match for all of the Avengers.
Onslaught
A combination of Magneto and Professor X, Onslaught has made no appearance in any Marvel movie to date. Any film featuring him would be a raging actionfest. In the comics, it took a combination of the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Avengers to defeat the monster. That's some power. Onslaught has super strength and superior mental power, but most impirtantly, it can sense mutant presence, which would be a danger to any X-Men. Onslaught's appearance looks like a souped-up Magento costume. And Onslaught can take on any Marvel hero as it can increase its size and strength at any time.
Galactus
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer totally messed this one up. Galactus never really made a true appearance. He was more of a cloud of smoke. Galactus is dangerous, like destroy-a-whole-world dangerous. Why would we be afraid of a bunch of smoke? Get it right, Fantastic Four. Galactus is the most god-like figure since it literally eats planets and is responsible for eliminating entire species. The deity is so incredible, its form is perceived according to what that race believes is their god, something that gives and takes life.
Dr. Doom
Another Marvel bad guy who deserved better. And wouldn't you know it, Fantastic Four ruined another villain. Dr. Doom is capable of taking on numerous heroes at the same time. Doom is a scientific mastermind, can control vasts amounts of energy, posseses power over machines, casts defensive force fields and shoots deadly electric bursts. He needs to get beefed up in any future Marvel films. Let's pretend the two Fantastic Four movies never happened.
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Warner Bros
Good comedians are as hard to come by as good filmmakers. To stand out in just one of those fields is relatively rare. That's why this select group of artists who have had success in both is so extraordinary. Whether it's on the silver screen (or more realistically on TVs, laptops, and mobile devices, but you get the point) or on stage, they are simply experts in the art of making people laugh. Here are some of the best comedian/filmmakers working today.
Bobcat Goldthwait
The "screaming comedian" of the 1980s is a seasoned writer/director and has created some great films in recent years including World's Greatest Dad and God Bless America. His latest feature Willow Creek, which tells the story of Bigfoot enthusiasts, is making the rounds on the festival circuit and stands to be his most successful film yet.
Mike Birbiglia
A champion of brutally honest, self-deprecating humor, Birbiglia established himself as a top-notch filmmaker with the release of his freshman film, the semi-autobiographical Sleepwalk with Me in 2012, which he co-wrote and co-directed.
Ricky Gervais
Gervais made his bones in television but has made his way into stand-up and film, directing his first feature, The Invention of Lying, in 2009.
Jay Chandrasekhar
Chandrasekhar had already been performing for several years before the cult hit Super Troopers. He and his Broken Lizard cohorts have released a slew of hilarious films since including Beerfest and Babymakers.
Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant
Veterans of The State and Reno 911, the pair have branched out into features. The long-time writing partners co-directed 2013's Hell Baby, Garant's third feature and Lennon's first.
David Wain
The former director of The State, Wain created a cult following with his star-studded directorial debut Wet Hot American Summer in 2001. He has since directed Role Models and Wanderlust, while still devoting a great deal of time to television.
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Ah... Robert De Niro using the f-word... it just feels right. It's like coming home after a long vacation. The trip might have been nice, but you only get to truly call one place your own. And De Niro's home is in those four little letters. There have been previous trailers for The Family, but this newest red band trailer ratchets up the colorful language to its blissful peak, and turns the f-bomb into an expressive piece of art. Bobby D hasn't had a role in a while that has really let him get down and dirty, but The Family looks like the movie that will turn all that PG-13 nonsense around. Most importantly, it looks like the legendary actor is finally having some fun at the movies again.
In the film, De Niro plays Fred Manzoni, an old school Brooklyn wise guy who gets himself and his family shipped to France when they have to enter the Witness Protection Program. Of course, all four members of the family have to deal with the massive culture shock, and old mob habits definitely die hard. The black humor in this trailer makes The Family look like a great comeback for De Niro. Not that he ever truly went away; he's maintained great titles like Silver Linings Playbook, but there's something nostalgic about seeing the actor play a sleezy mobster with a penchant for swearing. In this role, it seems like he's wrapped up his whole mob filmography, from The Godfather Part II to Goodfellas, into one expletive-ladden victory lap. Welcome back, Mr. De Niro. Welcome the f**k back.
More:'The Family' TrailerRobert De Niro and John Travolta in 'Killing Season' Trailer'The Family': The Plumber Clip
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After Dark Films
It seems a bit odd to take on a movie review of Courtney Solomon's Getaway, as only in the loosest terms is Getaway actually a movie. We begin without questions — other than a vague and frustrating "What the hell is going on?" — and end without answers, watching Ethan Hawke drive his car into things (and people) for the hour and a half in between. We learn very little along the way, probed to engage in the mystery of the journey. But we don't, because there's no reason to.
There's not a single reason to wonder about any of the things that happen to Hawke's former racecar driver/reformed criminal — forced to carry out a series of felonious commands by a mysterious stranger who is holding his wife hostage — because there doesn't seem to be a single ounce of thought poured into him beyond what he see. We learn, via exposition delivered by him to gun-toting computer whiz Selena Gomez, that he "did some bad things" before meeting the love of his life and deciding to put that all behind him. Then, we stop learning. We stop thinking. We start crashing into police cars and Christmas trees and power plants.
Why is Selena Gomez along for the ride? Well, the beginnings of her involvement are defensible: Hawke is carrying out his slew of vehicular crimes in a stolen car. It's her car. And she's on a rampage to get it back. But unaware of what she's getting herself into, Gomez confronts an idling Hawke with a gun, is yanked into the automobile, and forced to sit shotgun while the rest of the driver's "assignments" are carried out. But her willingness to stick by Hawke after hearing his story is ludicrous. Their immediate bickering falls closer to catty sexual tension than it does to genuine derision and fear (you know, the sort of feelings you'd have for someone who held you up or forced you into accessorizing a buffet of life-threatening crimes).
After Dark Films
The "gradual" reversal of their relationship is treated like something we should root for. But with so little meat packed into either character, the interwoven scenes of Hawke and Gomez warming up to each other and becoming a team in the quest to save the former's wife serve more than anything else as a breather from all the grotesque, impatient, deliberately unappealing scenes of city wreckage.
And as far as consolidating the mystery, the film isn't interested in that either, as evidenced by its final moments. Instead of pressing focus on the answers to whatever questions we may have, the movie's ultimate reveal is so weak, unsubstantial, and entirely disconnected to the story entirely, that it seems almost offensive to whatever semblance of a film might exist here to go out on this note. Offensive to the idea of film and story in general, as a matter of fact. But Getaway isn't concerned with these notions. Not with story, character, logic, or humanity. It just wants to show us a bunch of car crashes and explosions. So you'd think it might have at least made those look a little better.
1/5
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Andres Otero/WENN
He may be 83 and inclined toward talking to invisible people, but Clint Eastwood keeps adding more projects to his plate. He's already directing the upcoming Jersey Boys movie, but now TwitchFilm.com reports he's circling American Sniper, the high-profile Bradley Cooper film to which Steven Spielberg was initially attached.
American Sniper tells the story of Chris Kyle (Cooper), the real life Navy SEAL sharpshooter who recorded more confirmed kills during his tours of duty in Iraq than any previous sniper in U.S. history. Iraqi insurgents dubbed him "The Devil of Ramadi," and he was awarded the bronze and silver star multiple times. After being honorably discharged in 2009, he wrote American Sniper, an autobiography that became a New York Times bestseller. However, in February of 2013 he was allegedly murdered by a fellow former soldier on a Texas gun range.
Though it would have been an exciting new challenge for Spielberg, whose recent work has consisted largely of period pieces, Eastwood may really be the better choice. Anyone who's seen The Outlaw Josey Wales or Letters from Iwo Jima knows that the former Dirty Harry understands how to film a shootout. He also has an affinity for military culture, as demonstrated by Heartbreak Ridge, and can balance action with a gritty portrait of homefront life. And along with Jersey Boys, it could also be a much-needed palate cleanser for his Q&amp;A with Invisible Obama at the RNC and, perhaps an even worse sin, his unwatchable turn in Trouble With the Curve.
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